Amid the slow recovery from Hurricane Katrina, Christ Church, the Episcopal Cathedral of New Orleans, turned 200 years old. It honored its birthday and the city with a formal concert and the street music of a jazz funeral — mourning what was lost but confident of rebirth.

A growing number of families are not the traditional married mother and father with children — single mothers, cohabiting men and women, gay couples, and the divorced have become more common. How are churches and other religious groups responding to these families?

In recent years, there’s been a dramatic growth in the black middle class. But poor black families endure huge problems — high rates of divorce, single parents, and out-of-wedlock births. At the same time, African-American women are very religious. Why are so many poor African-American families in trouble, and what are their churches doing to help?

Top Anglican Church leaders from Africa and Asia came to the U.S. this week and issued a joint pledge of support for conservatives in the U.S. Episcopal Church. The international leaders met in Pittsburgh with more than 2,100 Americans who are at odds with the Episcopal Church over the consecration of an openly gay bishop.

Evolution, the theory that all organisms descended from a common ancestor, is widely accepted as a cornerstone of biology. Kansas will now also permit other ideas, including intelligent design. No designer is mentioned, but critics say intelligent design is disguised creationism, a religious view.

As the U.S. Senate prepared for hearings on President George W. Bush’s nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, the court heard arguments on a major religious freedom case. At issue is whether the União do Vegetal Church should be able to import a hallucinogenic tea it uses for worship, or whether the government should be able to prevent that as a danger to public health.

According to a survey commissioned by RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, three quarters of all Americans say they believe it's likely their children will grow up to be of the same religious faith as their parents, but more than half say they worry about that. Betty Rollin reports on the parents and children of four religious traditions in three very different families.

A poll commissioned by RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY shows that Americans both idealize the traditional family — husband and wife with children — and at the same time are more and more accepting of divorce, cohabitation, and the growing number of families that are nontraditional.

Family structures in America have changed significantly over the last 35 years. RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY commissioned a survey to determine the effects of changing family structures on religion, and vice versa. Bob Abernethy discusses the results of the survey with Anna Greenberg, who directed the poll, and John Green, of the University of Akron.

Historically, in most religious traditions, suicide has been considered a sin. In light of this, many survivors have felt religiously stranded. How can their faith help them heal when that same faith may fault their loved one for the act of suicide?

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. "Fasting, for me, is a constant prayer that you're engaged in throughout the day. For 12 hours or more, you're praying," says Zuleqa Husain, a young American Muslim.

We talked with Rabbi Alan Lew of Congregation Beth Shalom in San Francisco, who has written about the High Holidays in his new book, "This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared." Before he became a rabbi, Lew practiced Zen Buddhism for 10 years. Now, he blends Jewish and Buddhist traditions in his practice.

A growing movement within American Judaism that recalls the tendency in most faiths for worshippers over the years to move back and forth between the head and the heart -- theology and doctrine on one side, spiritual fervor on the other.

St. Nicholas had stood, literally, in the shadow of the Twin Towers. Then came Sept. 11, 2001. As the towers around it began to fall, the tiny church never had a chance. The four year anniversary of the attacks serves as a reminder of how long it's taking to rebuild.

The fate of St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans is uncertain. Its pastor was evacuated to Baton Rouge, while members of the church have spread across the nation. Amy Butler, the church’s former associate pastor, is trying to minister to members online from Washington, D.C. Also, what role should the government have, if any, in providing compensation to the victims?

Although authorities have mostly focused on evactuating New Orleans residents, there were also a few people who had fled the city who were allowed back in. One of them was the Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana, Charles Jenkins, and correspondent Deborah Potter went with him.

As the Gulf Coast reels from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the federal government tries to speed up its much-criticized response to the crisis, especially in New Orleans, religious groups are playing a key role in emergency relief efforts.

"The ancestors passed these songs to us. These are songs that are gifts to us today. So even though these songs were created 150 years ago, we can still use them today," says Dr. Arthur Jones, a psychologist at the University of Denver. As part of a Smithsonian Institution program, he visited a Boys and Girls Club, where he taught spirituals to children who may never have heard them.

Terminally ill patients exercise their "right to die" when they want their suffering to end, but what about those who want to live? A British court ruled that a doctor can decide when to terminate a patient's life. Leslie Burke suffers from cerebral ataxia and will eventually lose his ability to speak and swallow, yet he is concerned that doctors will choose to end his life against his wishes.

In the United States, a diverse coalition of Christians, Jews, and Muslims has been raising awareness about Sudan. Initially, African-American leaders were slow to join in. But now, black churches are increasingly moving to the forefront of grassroots activism on Sudan.